If Park Bank is liable for not spotting Sujata "Sue" Sachdeva's $34 million embezzlement from Koss Corp. and has to reimburse the company, Koss Chief Executive Michael Koss should also be ordered to personally pay the public company he runs, the bank argues in a new lawsuit.

Grant Thornton, Koss Corp.'s former auditor, should also have to pay a portion of any award that may be ordered, Park Bank argued in the latest twist in a long-running court fight stemming from Sachdeva's massive embezzlement.

"Park Bank denies any and all liability to Koss in this case," the bank said in its action. "Nevertheless, should Park Bank be found liable to Koss (Corp.) and required to pay damages to Koss, in this case, those damages will have been the result of a common liability of Park Bank, Michael Koss and Grant Thornton, thereby entitling Park Bank to (a) contribution from Michael Koss and Grant Thornton."(10)

Blog Archive

Posts for September, 2010

It was a birthday party like many others, with a mob of kids in paper hats yakking away while decorating their cupcakes with pretty sprinkles. There was pizza and prizes, candles and cake. After the wee revelers vacated the scene, artist and photographer Stella Kalaw took a photograph of the empty table, with tipped over cups with straws poking out of them, strewn plates of half-eaten cake, little chairs pushed out of place and a pretty pink polka-dotted table cloth set against a pale yellow wall.

It’s a sweet and surprisingly poignant photo. There is a lot of presence in the abandoned place.

I bought the photograph, titled “After the Birthday Party,” for a modest $40 on Collect.Give, a web site where people can collect photographic art and donate to worthy causes. The photographers featured on the site give 100% of the profits to causes they care about.

Kalaw’s niece suffered a stroke when she was born a decade ago. Kalaw is giving the proceeds from her photograph to an organization that was vital in getting her niece through that time and to her 10th birthday party, The Guidance Center. Collect.Give is a great place to find very affordable art by 23 extremely accomplished photographer-artists, including two from Milwaukee, Sonja Thomsen and Kevin Miyazaki. New prints are added every two weeks. | Sept. 4, 2010(1)

Ald. Joe Dudzik apparently has some questions about the Janet Zweig public art project for Wisconsin Ave. He has introduced a communication file and is requesting a progress report from the Department of Public Works at Thursday's 9 a.m. meeting of the Public Works Committee.

I have asked Ald. Dudzik what concerns he may have and am awaiting reply. As many of you will remember, this wonderful project was jeopardized last year when the Public Works Committee heard from the DPW because no one was there to speak on behalf of the project in a coherent, reasoned way. Let's not allow the arts community to be caught unaware again.

UPDATE: I've heard from artist Janet Zweig, who said she'd be happy to provide a progress herself at some point. I also heard back from Ald. Dudzik, who did not want to discuss the matter prior to questioning DPW officials. Ald. Robert Bauman confirmed that the item is on the agenda and going forward.

The committee hearing will be webcast live on Channel 25. | Sept. 7, 2010(3)

The most beautiful little storage shed in Milwaukee has been included in an an important anthology of cutting-edge architecture, "Architecture Now! 7," just published by Taschen books.

Built by students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Architecture and Urban Planning, the petite storage structure in the Menomonee River Valley beneath the 35th Street bridge will be included in the book along side projects by the world's greatest architects, including Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & De Meuron, Rem Koolhaas and others.

The structure was the product of the Marcus Prize. Every other year, the Marcus Corporation awards $100,000 to an "emerging talent" in architecture. Next to the Pritzker Prize, the field's most prestigious award, which goes to an architect for a life's work, it is perhaps the most lucrative architecture award there is. | Sept. 8, 2010»Read Full Blog Post(1)

The Charles Allis Art Museum is situated in a landmark, Tudor-style mansion and boasts a collection of 19th century decorative arts. Its success as a museum depends on nostalgic impulses that compel us to look to history for the secret messages that help us understand our present and future. One does not enter the Charles Allis and think “contemporary and conceptual” but rather “classical and cultivated.”

Placing an exhibit titled “New Media,” which closes after Wednesday, into this antique frame has created a curious contrast that exacerbates the dichotomy between past and present. | Sept. 14, 2010»Read Full Blog Post

The fall art exhibition season is getting underway. My preview for the season runs in Sunday's paper. There are events that, though just out of reach from Milwaukee, I'd be remiss to not mention too. So, here's a rundown of exhibits to inspire a few arty sojourns. Enjoy and feel free to add you own recommendations in the comments below.

GRAND RAPIDS
As a critic, I can't help but have some misgivings about ArtPrize, which is sort of like the "American Idol" of the art world, though I appreciate its populist sensibility and ambition. In just a few weeks last year, this art festival attracted about the same number of people as passed through the Milwaukee Art Museum during the entire year. Artists from all over the world will exhibit work throughout Grand Rapids and compete for what is reported to be the largest cash prize for an individual artist in the world, $250,000. Nearly a half million dollars in prize money is distributed in total. Oh, and here's the novel part -- the top prize is awarded entirely by popular vote. No critics needed. No expert knowledge required. It's just what everyone loves and votes for via cell phone, plain and simple. The results may be very telling. Left to its own devices, what does American consider "good art?" I may take the ferry acros the lake just to experience the phenomenon. ArtPrize gets started Wednesday and runs through Oct. 10.

MADISONI found myself salivating over many of Madison's visual art offerings this season. The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art has created a heightened incentive for jaunts west. I am especially interested to see "Clayton Brothers: Inside Out," the first museum survey for a pair of brothers who work collaboratively, Rob and Christian Clayton. Steve Fleischmann, director at MMoCA, describes the works as populated by an eccentric cast of characters from the outskirts of the American psyche. Born in the `60s in Colorado and now in LA, the brothers are influenced by skateboard and surf culture, punk rock, folk art, cartoons and street art. Who better to talk about the work of this unusual duo than Fred Stonehouse, who also creates rich and strange alternate realities in his own paintings. He'll talk about the show on Oct. 28. | Sept. 18, 2010»Read Full Blog Post

A few things to note. The dedication of a public sculpture by Juame Plensa in Atwater Park takes place tonight, the 6th annual Performance Art Showcase is tomorrow evening, the Milwaukee Film Festival opens (including some nice offerings for art lovers) with a film and a party Thursday and a couple of shows in some of Milwaukee's newest spaces, Small Space and nAbr, open this weekend. | Sept. 21, 2010»Read Full Blog Post

The Milwaukee Artist Resource Network, an advocacy group for the area's creative class, will have a home of its own for the first time in its decade-long history.

The group will move into its new space at 5402 W. Vliet St. in early October and hold a grand opening celebration early in 2011. The space will serve as a resource for artists and include space for exhibitions, screenings, performances and MARN's many workshops. It will also have a computer lab with several work stations, a matting and framing area and a place for visual artists to shoot professional, high quality images of their work.

The location on the west side was chosen because there are already several supportive arts organization on the eastern end of the city, including RedLine, Walker's Point Center for the Arts, Bucketworks and others. It's also a central location for the greater Milwaukee area, the group's officials say. | Sept. 23, 2010»Read Full Blog Post(7)

Racine —Vera Scekic and Robert Osborne needed a particular tree for their new home, something svelte but statuesque.

They finally found a European hornbeam that, if carefully pruned, will grow into a thin column. It should fit into the snug alcove made for it.

The sapling, which feels like part of the home’s interior, is an apt metaphor for the life the couple hopes to cultivate here – one that flourishes but is disciplined and contained, too. | Sept. 26, 2010»Read Full Blog Post(22)

Hi all, I am so enjoying this year's Milwaukee Film Festival thus far, and I hope you are too. As I mentioned in my Fall Arts Preview, there are several films that are suited to an art-loving audience. One of them is showing at the Oriental tonight: "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child."

I saw it at the Film Forum in New York some weeks back. It's a borderline amateur documentary built around a small amount of never-seen, rough-around-the-edges footage of the artist. The production values have much to be desired. Some of the audio is distractingly bad. And frankly Jean-Michel Basquiat, even as he was interviewed by his own intimates, said little to explicate his own work. He was typically coy, high, shy, paranoid or some combination of these things whenever he spoke about his art. Still, he was gone at 27, from a heroin overdose, which makes all of the footage poignant nonetheless. Some of the snippets of Basquiat are so over exposed that the surrounding yellow walls in the room seem to bleed into everything, to glow a sour, lemon-drop like hue. It's all very surreal and oddly suits the subject.

What is incredible about the film is the footage of the artist actually at work on his Neo Expressionist paintings. The supplementary interviews with art historians and artists such as Julian Schnabel (wearing truly terrible lounge wear, as per his reputation), are from the point of view of those who loved Basquiat. But they do manage to add context. In the end, I can recommend this film because I did walk away with a greater appreciation for the pressure cooker that was the art world in the `80s and the depth of an artist I thought I already knew. | Sept. 27, 2010»Read Full Blog Post(5)

Kohl’s Department Stores plans to give the Milwaukee Art Museum $2.7 million over the next three years to fund educational programming for young children and families.

The gift — one of the largest corporate gifts in the museum’s history and the largest of any kind for education, according to museum officials — will fund an art gallery, an art studio and an interactive lab where families can get information about the museum’s collection.

These three spaces will replace a trio of existing art galleries around the stairwell in the museum’s older structures. | Sept. 28, 2010»Read Full Blog Post(6)

Hi everyone, how are you enjoying this year's Milwaukee Film Festival? I have plans to see "Metropolis" with the Alloy Orchestra and "Who Is Harry Nilsson" tonight at the Oriental, so I won't be able to catch one of my favorite flicks of this year's festival: "The Art of the Steal."

I have, of course, seen it many times already, so I can highly recommend it to you. When typically staid art scholars take to the streets, screaming "Philistines!" (and are entirely justified, by the way) you know you've got the makings of an edge-of-your-seat art heist. And this film would be just that if it weren't, sadly, nonfiction.

For those of us who've followed this sorry tale through the pages of art publications in recent years, it is really wonderful to see the whole case of the Barnes Collection laid out in a cogent, clear way. It is a complex tale in some ways, but also a simple one of thievery in others. The film chronicles the scandalous grab of one of the most important collections of mostly 20th-century European art on the planet, worth more than $25 billion. It also includes African, Asian and Native American art, among other things. | Sept. 28, 2010»Read Full Blog Post

You can tell the art season is in full swing by the length of this week's "This Week in Art," yes? It's a busy one, with lot of art exhibits opening and closing throughout the state. I'd recommend getting to the Portrait Society show before it closes, especially if you haven't seen it yet. Also, note that the Riverwest Artwalk is this weekend. OK, here's the complete rundown.

OPENINGS

"Transpose" work by David Schaefer at the BYO Studio on Sep. 30 | Sept. 28, 2010»Read Full Blog Post

When it comes to public art, there are a few rules of thumb that should seem glaringly obvious.

Unmistakable, clear-as-the-nose-on-your-face rule number one: If the place where you put your art looked better before you put art the art there, you’ve screwed up. Patently evident rule number two: If a work of art is less interesting after you’ve placed it in the public environment, you’ve likewise made a misstep.

And let me throw in a third, for good measure: There is no real point to mediocrity in public art. | Sept. 30, 2010»Read Full Blog Post(56)

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Keep up with the art scene and trends in urban design with art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher. Every week, you'll get the latest reviews, musings on architecture and her picks for what to do on the weekends.